The round was led by pan-African firm CRE Venture Capital (catch up with co-founder Pule Taukobong here), and will be used to fuel Andela’s pan-African expansion.

A quick mention too for former Andela co-founder Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, whose new venture – payments startup Flutterwave – secured funding of its own in August, a US$10 million Series A round.

CcHub expands its scope

Nigerian incubator Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) had an even busier year than most, exhibited mainly by its European PitchDrive, held in partnership with Google. CcHub took 14 startups from across Africa to various European hubs to pitch to potential investors and partners.

The TopCheck platform allows users to compare prices of financial products such as various types of insurance, and loans. It has now joined Silvertree’s subsidiary Compare Africa Group (CAG), which offers online price comparison of goods and services across South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.

No African country made the top 20, but Lagos, Cape Town and Johannesburg warranted mention in the report. At US$2 billion, the Lagos startup ecosystem is the most valuable in Africa continent, but only second after Cape Town in terms of the number of startups.

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Passionate about the vibrant tech startups scene in Africa, Tom can usually be found sniffing out the continent's most exciting new companies and entrepreneurs, funding rounds and any other developments within the growing ecosystem.